Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Mike Farris:
Homeschool students often have positive social growth because they interact with adults and children of all ages. But for busy homeschooling parents of large families, it can be more difficult to track how each child is developing. Marcia, is there a certain time when parents should supplement what they’re doing at home with more outside opportunities?

Marcia Somerville:
Well, I really can only speak for myself. I do think that God arranges families very differently, but I’ll tell you about our experience.

My husband, I think wisely, mandated that I not plan any lessons or social activities during the time that our younger children needed naps. And because we had six kids over 10 years, there were years where we basically stayed home, kept our own homeschool lessons, did our own play time, and socialized with each other for years and years. And what I found, as a fruit of that, was that we built a very solid base of parent-child relationships and husband-wife relationships. Our family was able to take the time to build the necessary platform to then move out into the community more.

I felt as the children got older, they did need more social settings. And so we got involved in things like church activities, after school sports programs, and things like that. But I found that staying home in those early years, which is kind of counter-intuitive for a lot of young moms today, was the best advice that I’ve been able to give for young homeschool families.

Mike:
Marcia, thanks so much for those words of advice. I’m Mike Farris.